On AI and Mental Health: It’s Already Here. Are We Ready?

In this episode of On the Mind, host Dr. Daniel Knoepflmacher speaks with Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a hospitalist and Associate Professor of Population Health Policy and Economics at Weill Cornell Medicine and a contributing writer for The New Yorker, about the promise and peril of artificial intelligence in mental health care. Their conversation explores the rapid expansion of AI into clinical documentation, diagnostic reasoning, and patient navigation, as well as the risks of cognitive de-skilling, sycophantic chatbots, and profit-driven apps that cloak commercial motives in the language of clinical care. They also discuss how AI's simulation of empathy and relational interaction is hacking the fundamental human bonds of attachment, trust, and genuine connection that lie at the core of effective psychotherapy and healthy human development. Dr. Khullar shares his thinking on the regulatory frameworks and research infrastructure needed to help ensure these technologies serve patients rather than exploit them.